


My Baby Girl

by TheNerdyTurtle96



Series: Hey Beautiful [2]
Category: Hermitcraft RPF
Genre: Bar Scene, F/M, Fluff, I really don’t know what else to put, Mentions of alcohol, Rare Pair, Sequel, Slightly less of a crackfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:27:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26736610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheNerdyTurtle96/pseuds/TheNerdyTurtle96
Summary: Cleo introduces her roommate Joe to her partner, Jevin. That’s actually pretty much it.Part 2 to “Hey Beautiful”
Relationships: ZombieCleo/iJevin
Series: Hey Beautiful [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1945999
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	My Baby Girl

**Author's Note:**

> This is part 2 to “Hey Beautiful” which explains why the title is weird. You should probably go read that story first, but you don’t have to, just like you probably should go sleep since it’s pretty late and you have school tomorrow, but you don’t have to. (Just curious, how many of you feel called out right now?) I’ll stop rambling for now and actually go write this sucker.

For once, Joe had gotten home from work early and in a good mood. His boss had been sick and without an annoying micromanager over his shoulder, Joe had finished all of his work for the day by lunchtime. When he arrived at his apartment at about 3:15, the first thing he noticed was that Cleo wasn’t there to greet him. That wasn’t terribly unusual, as she did have a job of her own. She was an administrator at a high school 40 miles from their apartment, which wasn’t a great working situation. However, she always made it work, no matter how many cups of coffee it took to get out the door by 6:30.

Joe hung up his backpack and jacket before strolling over to the coffee machine and brewing up a nice mug of plain black coffee. Grabbing a bowl from the cupboard, he filled it with a few handfuls of animal crackers and ate a couple of them while waiting for his coffee to finish. The caffeine was always a welcome addition to his system and the first sip, though scalding hot, was wonderfully refreshing. His gaze soon drifted over to the mail counter, where the pile of important mail was at least a week old. As he was in a fairly good mood, Joe scooped up the papers and dumped them on the kitchen table to work through the various bills, notices, and such. 

An hour later, all of the bills had been paid and every piece of mail was cleared off of the counter and taken care of, giving Joe a nice serotonin boost. Just as he was about to wonder what to do next, the door slammed open and Cleo stomped inside. She was muttering to herself as she flung her backpack onto the couch, but froze when she saw Joe.

“What are you doing here?”

“You say that like we haven’t been living together for four years,” Joe amusedly responded.

“Aren’t you usually at work?” Her tone was less shocked and more like the normal Cleo this time.

“Yes, but my boss was sick today and I got done early, so I went home an hour ago,” he explained.

“At least  _ you _ had a good day at work,” Cleo shook her head as she reached her hand into the candy jar and pulled out a Snickers bar.

“Would you like to enlighten me unto the predicaments and stupidity of dealing with the childish problems of unruly adolescents and inefficient adult humans?” Joe liked using fancy language occasionally, as Cleo found it funny that he could actually talk that way. He tucked away his fancy words for times when he knew that Cleo needed a laugh and otherwise tried to speak so that others could understand him. As he had hoped, the woman let out a bark of laughter at his elegantly worded question.

“Oh, Joe. You know me. Of course I want to complain about what big idiots I had to deal with today.” 

Thus, Joe ended up listening to Cleo rant about a few teachers and some other administrators that were solving a problem very inefficiently over email and how she had gotten roped into the whole situation, but didn’t even need to get involved. By the time she was done, the Snickers bar (and the second and third ones) were gone and her expression was more relaxed and perky. After taking a deep breath, Joe was about to ask her a clarifying question before her phone, which was laying on the counter next to her, loudly buzzed. Cleo briefly scanned the screen before glancing sheepishly at Joe.

“Sorry, I need to take this.” Her finger slid across the screen to pick up the call and she held the device up to her ear. A few moments passed before muffled talking came from the other side. 

“Oh, hey gorgeous!” Joe crinkled his eyebrows in confusion. Wasn’t that Iskall’s pet name for his girlfriend, Stress? 

“Yeah?” More muffled noises ensued. “No, that sounds great. Wait, I just thought of something. Could you hold for a sec?” Cleo moved the phone away from her and leaned in closer to Joe.

“What do you think about going to the bar tonight and meeting one of my partners?”

“Um,” he drew out the word as he quickly weighed the pros and cons of saying yes. “Sure!”

“Cool!” Cleo returned back to the phone.

“Remember that guy I said that I lived with who’s my best friend?” A short sound of affirmation could be heard from the other end of the line. “Well, he’s actually home tonight and in a good mood and he said that he’d go to the bar with me. Do you want to meet him?”

A couple of seconds later, Cleo gave an excited thumbs up to Joe, who offered up a closed-lip smile in return.

“Alright. See you then!” She dropped her phone back onto the counter and jumped up and down a few times.

“Yay! This is exciting!” Joe grinned at her enthusiasm.

“On a more serious note,” he shifted his tone a bit. “What do you feel like for dinner? I love you, but Snickers bars aren’t a real dinner.”

“Joe,” Cleo narrowed her eyes in a playful way. “We’ve had this argument before. It counts.”

“Even if it does, it’s not even 5:00,” he replied.

“That just means I can have more Snickers later!” Joe shook his head a few times as Cleo grinned slightly evilly before lowering her voice a bit. “But seriously, I’m kind of craving some lasagna.”

“We can make that work,” Joe happily answered.

—————

After a nice dinner, Cleo retreated to the bathroom to change her clothes and makeup to be more fitting for going to the bar. Soon, she dramatically threw open the door, wearing a navy tank top and ripped jean shorts with mint eyeshadow and bold eyeliner accenting her skin tone perfectly. Joe was originally planning on wearing his same polo and work pants, but Cleo refused to let that stand. A deep search through his closet and dresser finally ended up with her tossing a pair of nice jeans and a plain black hoodie into his arms and shooing him off to change. At first, he was reluctant about the casualness of the outfit, but Cleo showering him with compliments gave him a bit of self-confidence.

Soon, they were walking across the street and into Cleo’s usual bar. The sun had mostly set by then and the bright neon signs took a bit of time for Joe’s eyes to adjust to. At the door, a bored guard was fidgeting with a pen and gave a quick nod to Cleo as she walked through the doors. Joe figured that she must have come here so many times that the bouncer didn’t need to check for an ID. As he entered the bar, his eye caught on a corkboard filled with badly designed posters for all sorts of events. The most prominent one was an ad for Alcoholics Anonymous, which Joe found quite amusing.

Turning his attention back to Cleo, she was confidently striding her way through the crowd and Joe stuck close to her side. Across the room, a guy in a nice dark grey t-shirt and jeans waved to her and she winked in return. As the two of them approached the barstool, the man got up and gave Cleo a kiss on the cheek.

“Hey, beautiful,” the man happily said.

“Hey, gorgeous,” Cleo replied before gesturing to Joe, who was awkwardly standing next to her. “This is Joe, my roommate and best friend.”

“Nice to meet you, Joe,” the man extended his hand and Joe firmly shook it. “I’m Jevin.”

“Also glad to meet you, Jevin.”

After Cleo ordered a margarita for herself, the three of them started a conversation of which the subject drifted wildly. Quickly tearing through the typical small talk about the weather and “get to know you” questions, Joe and Jevin eventually ended up in a heated debate about soccer teams. Each of them made a case for their favorite team and Cleo amusedly watched the two of them duke it out. They finally resolved it by politely agreeing to disagree.

At that point, Cleo excused herself to use the restroom and Joe kept one eye on her as she walked to the back of the room, just to make sure that she was safe. It was an instinct that he couldn’t get rid of, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted it to go away. Cleo was like his sister and he felt a need to keep her safe, even though he knew that she could take care of herself. That reminded him of something he wanted to discuss and Joe lowered his voice as he leaned a bit closer to Jevin.

“So, Cleo talks quite a bit about you.” Jevin turned to face Joe, his expression calm and accented with a slight smile.

“Oh, really?”

“She definitely enjoys her time with you, I can tell.” Joe decided to leave it PG and Jevin smirked at the euphemism.

“That’s good.”

“You know,” Joe’s tone gained a more serious element. “I’ve known Cleo for a long time and she’s very tough. However, she can still be hurt and if  _ you _ hurt her, you’ll be dealing with me. Got that?”

Normally, Joe didn’t look that threatening, but when it came to protecting Cleo, he could be absolutely terrifying. He hoped that Jevin got that message, which seemed evident in his military-like nod.

“Yes, sir.”

“And I don’t care what goes on between you two or what in the world your relationship status is. All I want is to see Cleo happy and safe.”

“Same here,” was the reply.

“Good.”

“What’s going on?” Cleo had returned from the restroom and placed a hand on both men’s shoulders. 

“Oh, we were just talking about you,” Joe casually answered.

“It’d better have been good stuff or I’ll break your legs,” she jokingly threatened.

“Don’t worry. No leg-breaking is necessary tonight,” Jevin grinned.

“One of these days,” Cleo sighed. “One of these days.”

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, I did it again. I posted this entire oneshot with one thumb and one pinkie finger because I was eating popcorn. I really need to stop doing this.
> 
> The more I look back on these more recent oneshots, the more I like them. Have a wonderful day!


End file.
